


Just another symptom of insanity

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Comfort fic, F/M, Hurt and comfort, Includes spoilers, Snuggling, post Revolution of the Daleks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28488756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: After having spent 19 years in prison, contempt, anger and disappointment was not the reaction she had hoped for from her fam upon her return. She's falling apart but the Master is there to catch her.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 139





	Just another symptom of insanity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VaultOfMelkurMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VaultOfMelkurMistress/gifts).



> I just... I just needed this after the way the Fam treated her, that's all.

Angry. Disappointed. Heartbroken.

That hadn't been the reaction the Doctor had hoped for, she had pictured, in her countless nights, staring out of the windows of her prison cell, dreaming about returning to her fam.

She had, well, she'd messed it up. That little bit was her fault, she figured. Not that she'd ever openly admit it, but gosh, she had never been accurate in her landing.

“ _Way of an understatement, love,”_ his voice intruded on her thoughts, mocking her.

“ _Shut up,”_ she thought back. _“You're not real. I don't need you anymore.”_

“ _Don't you?”_

She shook her head, shaking away the traces of him. The ghost of her past, keeping her company in the stuffed, tiny cell. The voice in her head, keeping her from going insane. The feather-light touch on her waist when she went to sleep, just light enough for her to pretend it was really there.

She had figured it was safe, dreaming about him then, now that he was gone. Really, truly, properly gone.

And now he had somehow sneaked into her mind, even after she'd long broken out. Living rent-free in her mind, so to speak.

Was he a sign of her going insane?  
Maybe. Hardly more insane than usual, though. Just another symptom of a sickness that had been haunting her for a while now.

“Nothing wrong with a little insane,” she muttered, facing her console.

“ _Couldn't agree more, love.”_

This was going to be a long day.

  
Yaz was... still weird. Still quiet. Ghosting around the TARDIS as if she wasn't sure where to go.

“Your room's untouched,” the Doctor tried but all she got was a dark glare.

She wasn't sure what to do to make it right again. They hadn't asked how she were, how long it's been and she didn't have the hearts to tell them. Couldn't bring herself to make them understand that they hadn't been the only ones hurting.

Nineteen years of prison, and here she was, feeling guilty over having not shown up in their comfortable Earth apartments for ten months.

" _Always the victim. Always taking the hit, so you have the right to feel sorry about yourself, aren't you?”_

“It feels weird,” Yaz said, without looking at her. “To be in there with Graham and Ryan not next doors.”

The Doctor gave her a sad smile.

“It's weird for me, too. I'll miss them, you know.”

“Yeah...” Yaz was still looking at the floor before her, shoulders slouched, head lowered and the Doctor sighed.

“You talked to Jack, didn't you?”

At that, the young woman looked up, eyes sharp.

“What do you mean?”

The Doctor shrugged.

“It's not the first time he did that to me. I send him out with one of my companions and they come back and I get hit with the 'someday you'll leave me'. I get it. I did that. To him, I mean. I guess I deserve it.”

“You left him.”

The Doctor gave her a crooked grin.

“As you see, not much point in leaving Jack Harkness behind, he tends to catch up with you. But yes. I suppose I did.”

“ _Really can't blame you.”_

“Shut up,” she replied without thinking and then watched Yaz frown.

“I didn't say anything.”  
  
“No, of course not. Sorry. I wasn't... I didn't mean you.”

The look Yaz gave her now was far too inquisitive.

“Doctor, are you sure you're alright?”

“I'm fine.” She tried that smile, that smile she always gave with those words but it was shaky and weak. “I've just had... a long few... days. Need some rest. And you do too, probably.”

“Yeah. Sure. Don't talk to me, then.”

With a sullen last look to her, Yaz turned around, walking back down the aisle, into her room.

The Doctor, for half a second, attempted to follow her, then stopped herself. She'd need time, she figured. Time and some sleep.

Her head was aching. Her body felt sore. Her old clothes felt oddly wrong on her body after so many years of prison clothes, itchy and uncomfortable. She missed her old bed. An actual soft bed, full of pillows and warm blankets.

Tired, suddenly, exhausted even, the Doctor parked her ship and made her way to her own bedroom, listening to the familiar hum of her ship, letting her fingers run over the walls of the corridor, tracing the familiar patterns.

“So glad to have you back,” she whispered. “So glad to have you welcome me.”

At least she had.

When the Doctor slipped out of her clothes and into her sheets, sighing at the softness underneath her, resting her aching head on her favourite pillow, eyes falling shut, there they were again.

Graham, looking at her with that look, that mix of pity and disappointment.

Ryan, cold, so cold, and she was too late to watch him unfold his wings, growing up. Leaving her. Both of them.

They had been all that kept her going in that prison - “ _You're hurting me, love.”_ \- and they had left her, like everyone did, always leave. Yaz had it all wrong. She thought she was going to be the one hurting once she was left behind.

Hah.

The Doctor curled herself up into a ball, suddenly feeling her eyes water and her body shaking. There was something in a stomach, a painful pressure, a knot, making her tremble. It took until it had risen up to her throat, made its way out between her lips that she realised it was a sob.

This had not been what she had hoped for, what she had pictured, oh no, not at all.

“ _Oh, for God's sake, Doctor, get a grip.”_

“ _Shut up!”_ she called back. _“Shut up, shut up, shut up! This is all your fault!”_

“ _My fault?”_ She heard his laugh in her mind, cold and cruel and twisted, dangerously close to the real thing. _“All you had to do is fly your TARDIS right this one time.”_

“You're not real,” she said out loud, her voice sounding broken in the darkness of her room. “You're not real and you have to leave now. I can't do this anymore.”

“ _Oh, I'm not useful anymore so you're kicking me out? What a surprise.”_

“You're not here!” The Doctor shouted the words now, screamed them, sitting up in her bed with her face run over by tears and her hearts pounding as she screamed at the demons of the night, the darkness to her light, never there when she needed him, always there when she didn't. “You're not here and you weren't there!”

She put all the pain into her words, all the pain of the last nineteen years, the confusion, the anger, the overwhelming despair of being trapped, of knowing he wasn't out there anymore, of knowing she had been abandoned by her oldest friend.

“You gave me that thing to blow us both up, you tried to break me, wanted me dead, wanted yourself dead and now I'm left in the shambles and you took the easy way out and you don't get to tell me not to be angry, you don't get to tell me not to throw you out because now I'm out, I'm _out_ and I can't do it anymore you bloody, self-absorbed _cunt_!”

She broke down. Right now, the Doctor couldn't care about Yaz hearing her or not, couldn't care about anything but holding herself together, somehow, as she wept into her pillow. It had been too much, so much. All she had needed was a little comfort, what she had gotten was Daleks and the knowledge of having let anyone down yet again. No matter how hard she tried, which sacrifices she made... She always came out _here_.

“Okay,” she heard his voice, clearer now, not in her mind but as if he was actually in the room with her.

Just another symptom of insanity, she told herself. Nothing to worry about.

“I'm gonna do this once and only once. Don't get used to it. Don't mention it. Don't think it means anything. I just... God, you're pathetic.”

There were arms around her waist, a touch that felt realer than the one she'd imagined in prison. Was this it, was she losing her mind?

“Doctor, will you at least look at me?”

The arms around her were struggling to pull her upright, one hand leaving her waist to gently cup her chin instead.

“Doctor.”

She let that gentle touch move her head, for now, let the curtain of blonde hair fall back, blinked through the tears at the face before him.

If anything, he looked as broken and sad how she felt. There was agony in those dark eyes, how had she not seen it before? Or maybe she had and just hadn't in her to care anymore. But here he sat, before her, in that stupid outfit, not a scratch on the checked trousers or waistcoat, not a corn of dust or a drop of blood left.

Just another symptom of insanity, she thought and he rolled his eyes.

“Well, you are,” she brought out out loud, her voice breaking only a little. “Everything I've always felt for you must be insanity, because there's no other way to explain it. Really isn't.”

“Come here, idiot.”

He pulled her into his arms, gently, let her lie against his chest. She felt his double heartbeat beneath her, comforting, familiar. His hands were rubbing soothing circles into her back and if she focused just enough, she could maybe make words out, letters, but she didn't, oh she didn't dare to listen.

“Why are you here?”

“Your upset kept me from sleeping.” He lied so smoothly now, if she didn't feel his presence in her mind, around her, that familiar ache between has hearts that had buried so much deep into her, she could no longer separate it from her own, she'd have believed him.

“That was you? The whole time? In my mind? You?”

“You seemed to get comfort from telling yourself I wasn't real, I didn't want to ruin that.”

She pulled back, slightly only, enough to look at him, not enough to give him the feeling he'd be required to take his arms away from her anytime soon.

“Since when?”

He smirked at her.

“It's the right amount of suffering I want for you. Just enough to keep you in there until that twat broke you out. Not enough to abandon you fully. Does that make sense?”

“Not in the slightest,” she frowned, sniffing once and he laughed.

“Yeah. Yeah. To me neither.”

He pulled her close again, hands holding her head this time, and she felt cocooned, safe, _held,_ as his fingers stroked her hair gently, soothingly.

“Does anything still make sense?” she asked because she had to know. “To you?”

“Not much,” he admitted and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“How did we get so messed up?”

“Gallifrey,” was all he said and she supposed he had a point. “They still haunt us from their graves.”

“You can't let go of something if it's not there anymore,” she whispered. “It's like trying to grasp ghosts.”  
  
“Well, you're still here,” the Master smirked. “My worst ghost will never fade. Come on, you need some sleep.”

He started to gently eased her back onto her mattress and she clung to him with all her might, fingers clawing at his waistcoat, legs wrapping around his waist.

The Master gave her a look of utter annoyance.

“I'll stay. You don't think I came all the way, sneaking into your TARDIS to then leave again?”

“But you will,” she whispered, lips dry as she remembered Yaz saying something so similar to her earlier. “You always do.”

He let his lips brush hers ever so softly, a sad smile on his lips.

“Yes, but not tonight, love. I mean it.”

She let him settle her down on the mattress, then. Let him cover her with the duvet. Watched him wearily as he slipped out of most of his clothes, before he laid down beside her, arms opening.

She slipped into his embrace without thinking, needing the familiarity, the smell, the feeling of being held, the way he was unmistakably _hers_. Her demons, her ghosts, her voice in her mind, her _home_.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“I noticed.”

“It hurt.”

“Good.”

But he squeezed her a little at that, lips brushing gently over her temple, soothing her, his beard scratching her skin ever so lightly.

There was comfort in touch. Right now, there was comfort in every sensation he could give her. She hadn't been touched in so bloody _long_.

She could feel his thoughtfulness more than she saw it. But she could see his face in schemes in the dim light of her room, could his eyes on her at all times. As they had always been, of course.  
  
“You should tell them,” he sighed, after a while. “They wouldn't be mad at you, if they knew.”

“No, probably not.”

“You want to punish yourself that hard?”

“They're gone now. Ryan and Graham. It's for the best. They've moved on. Nothing I say, nothing I've been through will change that. Shouldn't.”

“Maybe. But it doesn't always have to be that way, you know? You don't always have to leave your friends _behind_. You can just visit. Sometimes.”

He sounded bitter. Of course he did. She didn't have the energy, really, to pretend she didn't realise he was talking about more than her fam.

“It _hurts_ , don't you get that?” she spit out. “It hurts to have to say goodbye each time. I can't do it. I'm not strong enough. I've barely been strong enough to leave you behind once. I barely have the strength, anymore, to make new friends, to let new people back in, only to feel the same pain over and over and over again. I know it's coming and I... I just...”

She was crying again. She hadn't wanted to but the tears just came unwanted, but this time, he was here, he tightened his embrace, he pressed her against him again, the feeling of being near him taking away a bit of the suffering, making it bearable. She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder as she clung to him.

“You couldn't just have been a normal person, could you?” he asked and he was smiling, slightly, into the crook of her neck. “Couldn't just feel things like anyone else, no, you had to go all in. Feel everything with burning intensity.”

“Look who's talking,” she sighed. “You want to be pot or kettle?”

He laughed against her, vibrated underneath her and it was the most soothing sound she'd heard that day. All wrapped up in him, the humming of her TARDIS around her, the comfort of her bed beneath her, the Doctor felt her tears dry slowly as something inside her snapped back into place, healed.

“I'm glad you're here,” she whispered into the darkness and it was almost easy to do it, too, almost easy to pretend he wasn't really here to hear her.

Oh, but he _was_.

“Like I said,” he grumbled, but she could feel his smile in her mind, hear it in his voice. “Don't get used to it.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” she hummed, smiling back, into his mind, in her voice and he sighed, stretching out beneath her carefully, like a cat in its bed.

“Come on, then, Doctor. You need some rest. More Daleks to fight, tomorrow. Or maybe Cybermen. Or maybe Silurians. Or maybe me,” he added with a chuckle and she chuckled along with him, even though she couldn't be one hundred percent that he was joking.

“They'll forgive me, right?” she muttered, quietly, even as her eyes had fallen shut and her mind was drifting into sleep, on its way to dreamland more than it was in reality, now.

“I believe they already have,” he said, fingers brushing over her temple as he stroked away a single strand of hair and the Doctor fell asleep in the comfort of his touch, not sure anymore who it was they were really talking about.


End file.
